Chamber and committees

* includes teachers in primary, secondary, special schools and centrally employed teachers, with their main subject recorded as: Learning Support Secondary; Learning Support, Primary; Special Educational Needs (SEN) (primary) non-recorded pupils; SEN (recorded pupils); SEN (Secondary) non-recorded pupils; SEN Behavioural Support; SEN Learning Difficulties; SEN Physical Disabilities; Hearing Impairment; Visual Impairment; or English as an Additional Language (EAL). It also includes teachers in special schools with their main subject recorded as primary teaching.

(b) Initial quality assurance of the data on support staff revealed some issues that have required more extensive quality assurance to be carried out in conjunction with local authorities. As a result this data is not yet ready for publication. Statistics on teachers are not affected by these issues.

The field trial for PISA 2015 took place in March 2014. Scotland participated, along with all countries administering computer-based assessment in the PISA 2015 survey. The field trial involved assignment of students within participating schools to groups taking computer or paper-based assessment. The processing of raw assessment data was carried out by the PISA 2015 international consortium of contractors, appointed by the OECD, who have determined that it is not technically possible to draw conclusions about an individual country’s outcome. Consequently, the Scottish Government do not hold the results of the trial on mode effects.

Teacher census supplementary data provides a further breakdown of the headline statistics published in each edition of the statistics bulletin Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland and they have previously been published at varying intervals in the months following the headline statistics.

Teacher census supplementary data based on the 2017 edition of Summary Statistics for Schools in Scotland was published on 6 March 2018. More time was required to verify data given errors that came to light in the submission of information by local authorities.

The Scottish Government is committed to fully funding the almost doubling of funded early learning and childcare to 1140 hours by 2020. We are continuing to work with COSLA, and local authorities, and we are confident that we will agree a multi-year funding package by the end of April.

We are already providing substantial investment to support the expansion of the early years workforce including:

• Providing local authorities with an additional £21 million in revenue in
  ‎ 2017-18, and a further £52 million in 2018-19 to support the ELC workforce expansion.
• Increasing capacity in early years courses in colleges and universities in 2017-18 to support the first phase of the workforce expansion.
• We are working with the Scottish Funding Council to offer 1,500 additional places on a one-year higher national certificate course in 2018-19, as well as over 400 additional graduate-level places.
• Funding 435 additional graduates to work in nurseries in our most deprived areas and island councils by August this year.
• Skills Development Scotland has committed to increasing the number of modern apprenticeships in the early learning and childcare sector by 10 per cent year on year, up to 2020. Although take up is dependent on employer demand, the increase will see a record number of ELC modern apprenticeships in employment and working towards a relevant qualification.
• Launched phase one of our national recruitment marketing campaign in October 2017, focussing on school leavers. We are developing phase two for summer 2018, focussing on career changers and parental returners.
• Providing local authorities with the additional funding to enable payment of the Living Wage to all childcare staff delivering the funded entitlement by 2020.

As part of the Electric Vehicle charge point network operator services agreement awarded in 2016 to Charge Your Car (CYC) Limited, Transport Scotland tasked CYC with auditing each charge point site to ensure that the information provided on electric car charging points is accurate. Due to the logistics involved in visiting over 800 charge points across Scotland, the exercise is still ongoing, although nearing completion. Transport Scotland officials also meet with CYC's network manager on a weekly basis where updates on this exercise are provided.

The number of teachers funded through Pupil Equity Funding (PEF) was given in the answer to question S5W-13385 on 12 January 2018 . All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament's website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

Whilst we are aware that PEF is being used in a wide range of innovative ways, the Scottish Government does not hold information on the number of non-teaching school staff funded by PEF. Headteachers will report the use of PEF and impact to date in their schools annual standards and quality report.